


Operation BADASS

by TheOceanIsMyInkwell



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, BAMF Pepper Potts, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Everyone is an idiot and is indebted to Pepper Potts, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker has ADHD, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Has Issues, Whump, morgan is not here bc i never watched endgame and can't write characters i never saw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27990474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell
Summary: "Shit, Pete, did I justpunch you?”“No?” says Pete, voice shooting an octave higher.Tony reaches out his left hand for Peter to take. Reluctantly the kid accepts, and the man hauls him to his feet with a huff of effort. Peter suppresses another groan of pain, and for the first time, Tony finally has a good look at the clusterfuck that is now the kid’s face.“Oh, Lordy, just let me rearrange your face while you don’t say a peep about it,” Tony says, half-sarcastic, half-frantic.“’Mfine, Dony, don’t worry about be,” Peter rasps through his well and thoroughly broken nose.“Nope, no, we’ve sailed way past the worrying stage and we’re solidly panicking, buddy."--Or: May drops Peter off at the lakehouse; Peter sets out on a mission to show Tony he shouldn't be afraid of his new bionic arm; and Pepper, as usual, must clean up after these fools.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 39
Kudos: 244
Collections: ellie marvel fics - read





	Operation BADASS

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rachelmclacey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelmclacey/gifts).



> This one goes out to my dear @rachelmclacey who sent me such a creative drabble prompt, and the anon on Tumblr whose other prompt has been sitting in my inbox for a year! Oops
> 
> Combining prompt 116: "I'm sorry I broke your nose," 85: "I'm not going to be sympathetic until you go to a doctor," and 92: "Oh, honey, I'd never be jealous of you." With a special request for a lakehouse setting and some pepperony, and my usual (generous) dash of crack!
> 
> Yes, yes, this was supposed to be a drabble, but it's Kaleb and we know how he always goes...
> 
> Warnings for brief mentions of blood toward the end.

Here’s the thing: May Parker may be dropping off her nephew at the Starks’ lakehouse with the intention of trusting them to keep him out of trouble and well away from blood, death or injury, and logically she may know that Tony Stark is an adult, but when she picks up the phone on Saturday evening, she can’t say she is surprised in the least.

A rewind to Saturday morning finds Peter chattering in May’s ear on the drive upstate while he juggles a WhatsApp conversation with Ned and a meme battle with MJ over Instagram in true ADHD icon fashion. Currently, he’s outlining the many (read: exceedingly copious) points in his plan to get Tony to cooperate with his physical therapy exercises with his new bionic arm.

“So you think an orange will do the trick?”

“No, May, the orange is just a distraction, keep up,” says Peter with a playful roll of his eyes. May rolls hers back, gaze still trained on the road ahead through the windshield, and with her right arm she expertly reaches out to give Peter’s hair a rough tousle.

“Ouch--okay--manhandling precious goods here,” Peter complains, but he’s grinning. “Seriously, if knocking over one of the robots doesn’t make his parental instincts kick in and catch it with his arm, I don’t know what else will.”

May turns to look at him then as if she has a very fine idea of what _does_ make Tony Stark’s parental instincts kick in, but she presses her lips together conspiratorially and doesn’t say a thing. 

“Oh!” Peter says in a disturbingly bright tone. “I could also, alternatively, pretend to fall in the lake--like, just the shallow end, no danger of accidentally drowning? I guess--and he’ll grab me in no time, and then boom, he realizes what badass things he can do with his arm.”

May clears her throat. “Honey,” she says mildly, “you wanna think again on what you just said to me and then tell me what’s wrong with that plan?”

The kid takes a moment to consider that, brows furrowed at the dashboard. “Right,” he says slowly. “I guess the whole--dropping-into-the-Hudson-thing and then him fishing me out while he was in India...okay, trauma, bad memories, not a good idea, I see your point.”

“Glad to see you’re thinking of Tony’s mental health, really am, but also: _you can’t swim_ , Peter.”

“Which is why he would catch me!”

“Oh my God,” says May. “Can I trust you to please _not_ do this step in your--what do you call this plan again?”

“Operation BADASS. Bionic Arm Dad Always Saves Sh--”

“Right, yeah, got the picture,” May interrupts. “Do I even want to know who came up with that?”

“In my defense, I think it was Harley. Yeah, it’s almost always Harley. An acronym like that would’ve taken me, like, two weeks to come up with.”

“Okay. Fine. This is--” May’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. “We’re not doing step number seventeen in Operation...BADASS, okay?”

“I _could_ just eliminate the water scenario and switch things up, maybe fall off a---”

“You are doing _no_ falling off _any_ objects whatsoever, wet, dry or gaseous! Do I make myself clear?”

Peter at least has the decency to look a tad abashed at his aunt. “Sorry, May. I’ll just...stick to the routine robot-slapping and hope for the best.”

 _Jesus Christ_ , May thinks. She thinks she can understand now why she constantly finds Tony in his signature pose pinching the bridge of his nose when one of his teenage adoptees is in question.

And in her book, robot-slapping is definitely _not_ normal or even anything she remotely prepared for when she and Ben borrowed that giant stack of parenting books from the local library in 2007, but hey, a mom’s got to pick her battles.

\--

“Spring water’s in the fridge, filtered comes out of the dispenser, and you can choose the size of the ice cubes on the--the control panel thingy, if you want. Oh, and there’s a bunch of unused gallon bottles in the second pantry to the left, over there, totally brand new, you can take your pick and fill it up.”

“Should I be disturbed at the fact that we’ve just said hi to each other and you’re already plying me with gallons of your rich-people water?” says Peter wryly.

Tony doesn’t move his left hand away from Peter’s shoulder, but pats it insistently instead and continues steering him toward the kitchen where aforementioned rich-people water lies. “C’mon, kid, I’m trying to keep you hydrated. Isn’t that what good adults do? Lord knows we gotta make up for all the seventeen years you were probably--I dunno--inhaling dust and smog and getting dehydrated all over the place.”

Peter slips out from under Tony’s grip on his shoulder for a moment to peek into the second pantry. “You have sixteen bottles. Why am I not surprised.”

“I read a bunch of reviews and people couldn’t agree which lip shape was ideal for the design. I may have overbought. So sue me.”

“Good for you, I’m too poor to do that,” Peter says over his shoulder in a voice dryer than the Sahara.

“Is Tony bullying you again?” Pepper asks from the hallway. She slips through the doorway to the kitchen, looking all cozy and ready to chill in her baby blue sweatpants and oversized sherpa turtleneck--which, Peter isn’t fooled, since he’s convinced that Pepper Potts’ fuzzy socks and maybe the fruit basket on the kitchen island could pay for his entire college tuition.

“Naw, it’s fine, Mrs. Potts, Tony was just showing me his state-of-the-art collection of water bottles and the fridge dispenser.” Peter accepts the hug that Pepper folds him into and breathes in her scent, noticing that for the first time she doesn’t seem to be wearing any fragrance or product at all. Huh. That’s new.

“I’m retired. Bored out of my mind. Sitting in the crack in the couch and scrolling through L.L. Bean sales is probably the only safe thing I can do with my left hand,” Tony complains.

“You could plant, I dunno, tomatoes,” says Peter.

“We have a _gardener_ ,” Tony stresses. “And can you imagine me with tomatoes? Kid, I--wow, this is bullying.”

“It’s career reorientation, Tony,” says Pepper with a hand on her hip and the corner of her mouth quirking in amusement. She’s bustling around the kitchen, heating up some mugs of organic almond milk and taking a canister of chocolate shavings from the cupboard to make them all some hot chocolate. Peter hops up on the island and swings his legs over to join her on the other side and help.

Tony snaps the fingers of his left hand and points at Peter. “You--stop doing that, you’re giving me a heart attack. Honey,” he redirects his attention to Pepper, “you betray me too much the minute the kid walks in here.”

“I don’t know, hon, I think I betray you just the right amount,” Pepper says with a serene sip from her mug. Tony does not miss the way she winks at Peter at her side, and no, he does _not_ find that reasonable at all.

“I think he’s right, though. Gardening probably would be too domestic for his image,” Peter muses. “He should probably do boxing.”

“What part of _convalescing_ do you not understand, kid?”

“Dr. Reese said you should be ready to try out different forms of exercise once you’ve completed your physical therapy program,” Peter points out.

Tony sniffs. “A program I haven’t completed yet.”

“And whose fault is that?” Pepper says gently, but not without a characteristic arch of her brow.

“Save the world, they said. Snap your fingers, they said. Everybody will love and adore you,” Tony mutters to himself. He swipes his mug off the counter with his left hand and starts chugging, splutters from the heat, and keeps going despite the burn--no doubt to preserve the withering shreds of his dignity.

Peter straightens and puts his slightly more serious face on. “Really, Mr. Stark. I think your new arm is really freaking cool and you can do way more with it than you think.”

Tony lifts his right arm and pretends to consider it with a wiggle of the metal fingers. “What, like crush the door handle of a Bugatti? Cool superpower. I think it’s time you went to bed.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Peter says, crossing his arms, “and I didn’t come back all the way from the soul stone to hear you deflecting again.”

Tony points at him and looks at Pepper. “Oh, guilt tripping. Nice. Did he finally learn that one from you or May?”

“Tony,” says Pepper. 

“Fine, if you’re not going to bed,” Tony says to Peter, “then I’m taking a nap. Toodles.”

“Wait--Tony--”

Pepper lays a hand on the kid’s arm. “Let him be,” she says with a strange light in her eyes.

Peter looks like he definitely wants to argue, but he stills and then sags back against the counter at Pepper’s urging. They both watch Tony stalk out of the kitchen and head to the bedrooms in the back of the cabin, where he...then produces a frankly worrisome series of unidentifiable noises.

Peter startles and on instinct steps in the direction that Tony disappeared, but Pepper’s quiet, “It’s okay, just leave him for now,” makes him pause.

“It sounds like he knocked over the little side table again. He won’t like anybody coming running to help him right now. We’ll just pick it up later,” Pepper explains, when the kid turns back to her.

“That’s--okay. Um.” _Doesn’t sound healthy_ , is what Peter was about to say, but he clamps his mouth shut. Instead he shifts on his feet and shoves his hands into his pockets, suddenly feeling like the biggest asshole ever. “I’m sorry I pushed him,” is what he decides to say. “Sorry, Mrs. Potts.”

Pepper stops up a gentle little sigh in her chest and finishes her hot chocolate in a long draught before answering. Speaking up a little over the rush of the kitchen faucet, she says, “You know he jokes a lot about things, but he’s still...well. The recovery isn’t just about the physical.”

The soft _you of all people should be able to understand that_ goes unspoken, but it’s just as palpable to Peter, who flushes and turns away, leaning his hip against the island.

“I know,” says the kid. “I really--gosh. I do know that. And I just sounded so insensitive just now…”

“You were trying to be supportive,” says Pepper. “It’s also understandable. It’s kind of how you are with people you really care about.”

Peter’s face scrunches up like he’s licked a freshly cut lemon. “Okay, if that’s how you see it.”

Pepper raises her hands. “I’m an objective third party. I’m here to tell people when to cool down and also when they’re just being idiots beating themselves up over something.”

“I gotta talk to him.”

“I don’t argue with that, but you probably should let him nap first.”

“But--”

“Peter,” Pepper says, leveling her gaze at him, like _what did we just talk about?_

“Right,” says Peter. “Yup. Okay. Let the old man power nap to yell at me later.” 

Time to go kill some time waiting for Tony by polishing DUM-E and apologizing to him for wanting to use him for his robot-slapping experiment, Peter thinks.

\--

Tony doesn’t remember falling asleep after flopping down in his armchair in a huff, but he dozes fitfully. Thankfully the memories of fire and ash and the smell of the battle smoldering around him don’t revisit him this time. Still, he falls into a disoriented pit of darkness, and the sound of something crashing hours later sends him spiraling toward a fragmented consciousness.

Tony jackknifes upright in his recliner and on complete reflex shoots out his right hand in a fist. Something connects with bone and a body collapses, going down in a yelp and a tangle of limbs. Tony shouts, eyes wild, poised to spring to his feet, and his gaze swings from side to side seeking the intruder.

“Ow,” says a familiar voice from the floor. “Owee _fucking_ ow.”

“Kid?” Tony chokes out, ragged.

It’s dark. What time even is it?

“Just past five,” Peter’s voice replies nasally, jarring Tony, until he realizes that he must have muttered the last part aloud.

And on that note--okay, who the fuck decided that it was okay for the sun to set any earlier than eight in the evening?

Tony’s full consciousness starts filtering back to him in bits and pieces. With a groan, he wobbles onto his feet, and then squints into the gloom at the heap on the floor that he assumes is the spiderling.

“Pete,” he says. “What on earth are you doing down there.”

“I’m--ouch.”

And then Tony sees it. The kid has his behoodied arm over his face while the other hand cradles something gently in--oh. Oh my _God_.

“Shit, Pete, did I just _punch you_?”

“No?” says Pete, voice shooting an octave higher.

Tony reaches out his left hand for Peter to take. Reluctantly the kid accepts, and the man hauls him to his feet with a huff of effort. Peter suppresses another groan of pain, and for the first time, Tony finally has a good look at the clusterfuck that is now the kid’s face.

“Oh, Lordy, just let me rearrange your face while you don’t say a peep about it,” Tony says, half-sarcastic, half-frantic.

“’Mfine, Dony, don’t worry about be,” Peter rasps through his well and thoroughly broken nose.

“Nope, no, we’ve sailed way past the worrying stage and we’re solidly panicking, buddy.” Tony grabs Peter by the shoulders and shoves him through the doorway. “Out, out, c’mon, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Doooh,” Peter protests, quite ineffectively.

“Peter? Tony?” Pepper pads into the hallway from the living room. “What’s going--oh, my God.”

“My thoughts exactly. Pep, could you grab the light for me, please?”

“Doh hospitals,” Peter says.

The light snaps on, throwing Peter’s ruined face into full view. There’s blood trickling down from his nose to his chin, just like--okay. Yeah, no. Blood on Tony’s kid? That’s a big fat nope.

Pepper joins her husband in taking the kid by the arm and directing him to the couch. “Should we call Dr. Meralys?” she says.

“Good call. She doesn’t live too far from here, I think. FRIDAY?”

“ _Doh_ ,” Peter says again, flailing his arm.

Tony looks at him. “Excuse me?”

“Doh hosbitals, doh doctors,” Peter insists. He plops down heavily on the couch with the Starks on either side of him. “I’b _fine_.”

“You're telling me I’m giving you back to your aunt on Monday looking like _that_? Tell me again how you’re all ‘fine,’ buddy.”

“We need to set your nose,” says Pepper.

“I cad set it byself,” says Peter.

“Uh...right. So that’s gonna be a noo,” says Tony slowly. “Do you even remember the time you went to bed with your whole knee dislocated because you thought it was ‘gonna be fine’ the next morning?”

“It _was_ fine.”

“So let me get this straight, your version of ‘fine’ is you trying and failing to get up, calling your boyfriend at six in the morning, yodeling in _four different languages_ , and then roping in MJ and May to cover for you--”

“I didd’t rope adybody--stop callin’ me out,” Peter whines. “I'b an idvalid. Ow. My doze is broken.”

Tony crosses his arms. “I’m not gonna be sympathetic until you see a doctor.”

Without ceremony, Pepper reaches across from her side of the couch, cups Peter's chin in one hand, grabs his nose with the other, and cracks it back into place.

Peter, predictably, yodels.

Tony stares at his wife with the look of a man who is simultaneously terrified of the woman in front of him and turned on by that fact. "I'd high-five ya for that, Pep, but I think that would be insensitive."

"Mrs. Potts," Peter wails.

"You're welcome," says Pepper, as she picks up the paper towel she doused under the kitchen faucet and starts to dab at the blood tracks crisscrossing down Peter's lip.

Tony is positive he's having an aneurysm if this is his new normal. He lays his hand over his chest, feeling the uneven thump there. "What do we do now? Call May?"

"Doh," Peter manages around the paper towel. "She'll laugh."

"Buddy," says Tony, "your aunt is a woman of many emotions, but in a situation like this I can guarantee you laughing is not one of them."

"We should definitely call May," says Pepper, ever the responsible one.

"Wonderful. You can handle that, my lovely, my incandescent, my--"

"You're officially canceled from writing any love letters to me in the foreseeable future," Pepper deadpans. She turns her attention back to the kid. "Peter, hon, is it feeling any better?"

He pulls away the paper towel and unfurls it to turn it inside out and then ball it back up against his nostrils. "Better," he admits. "Thank you, Mrs. Potts."

"You're welcome," says Tony.

Peter gives him the stink eye. "You broke my nose."

Tony reaches out to tilt Peter's head back into the cushion by pressing his right hand against his forehead. The man seems completely unaware for the moment that he reached out with his bionic arm, but Peter stills the instant the metal comes in contact with his skin.

"Head back, let the blood flow stop for a sec," Tony says. "I'm sorry I broke your nose, kid. You know I try to blow things off with a joke when I'm all panicky about it. I'm--Jesus, I'm _so_ sorry, Pete. God."

Pepper lays her free hand on Tony's arm before he can spiral further into his familiar cycle of guilt.

"This is why this--" Tony stops as his gaze lands on his metal hand on Pete's brow. He frowns and makes as if to draw his hand back, but the kid grabs at his forearm to keep him right where he is.

"Stop," Peter slurs behind half-lidded eyes. "Whatever nonsense that was gonna be about your arm, stop."

"It's not your fault, Tony," Pepper reminds him.

"But look at his face, Pep! If I'd been more careful--stupid. If I'd been more in control…"

Peter cracks open one eye. "This is why exercising with your arm will help you, Mr. Stark," he says. "Then you can be more careful and in control."

Tony looks at the kid nestled there on the couch between them, hand jammed up against his nose and speaking wisdom around a bloodied scrap of paper towel. He stops to think, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, how absolutely _bonkers_ his new life is.

"For once," says Pep, "I'm telling you to listen to the kid."

"But--"

"Nope," says Peter.

"I--"

"Stop."

"Fine," Tony grumbles. "Fine. Will you let me wallow in self-loathing for thirty more minutes if I agree to do some exercising?"

"Finish the physical therapy program with Dr. Reese, and I'll give you a whole hour," Peter says magnanimously.

Pepper says, "Peter, no--"

"Deal," says Tony.

"Why do I even try?" says Pepper.

Tony flexes his metal hand, making a point of keeping his cool fingers where they are against Peter's forehead. "Thanks for setting his nose, Pep. Truly. I owe you my life."

"Again," she reminds him mildly.

"I'm pretty sure last time we were even," Tony quibbles with a raised eyebrow. 

"Really? I don't recall you ever returning the favor after I rescued your asses from that locked room in Legoland."

"Okay, first of all, pre-Blip reference, _unfair_. Second of all, you're just jealous I have an arm that can shoot lasers all the time."

"Oh, honey," Pepper says, all saccharine, "I'd never be jealous of you. You still need to call May."

Tony and Peter share a single look, the kid still stuffed up with his paper towel, and they loll back their heads and groan.

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing this in one sitting tonight when I received some bad news that made me start...crying, tbh. But I let it all out and went back to finishing this with a vengeance, bc dammit, if there's one thing left in life that always gives me joy it's being able to write crack and give my adopted characters all the domestic and nonsensical goodness that they DESERVE.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it! Mayhaps had a giggle or two!! Please let me know what you think?! <3 -kaleb
> 
> My socials:  
> Tumblr: theoceanismyinkwell  
> Insta: kc.barrie  
> Wattpad: kalebbarrie


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